


Facade

by Lynds



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, BAMF Emma Frost, F/M, HBIC Emma Frost, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Poor Charles, Post Beach Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22835644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: After Cuba, it's not Erik who frees Emma Frost from captivity, but Charles.
Relationships: Emma Frost/Charles Xavier
Comments: 24
Kudos: 54
Collections: X-Men Rare Pairs 2020





	Facade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherikinkrakoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherikinkrakoa/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [cherikinkrakoa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherikinkrakoa/pseuds/cherikinkrakoa) in the [xmenrarepairs20](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs20) collection. 



> From the following prompt in the 2020 Rare Pairs challenge!
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> How dangerous would it be for these two to join forces? The world is about to find out.
> 
> Could be relationship or just best friends.

Emma sat up in bed and looked at the open door. “Well, sugar, I must say this is a surprise.”

Charles Xavier looked back at her blandly. She didn’t even bother to try and hide as she skated over the surface of his thoughts - only things he was allowing her to see, surely. She knew he had her beat on sheer power.

Charles smiled and inclined his head in thanks. Emma stood smoothly, ignoring the blonde beefy kid who started forward beside Charles as she moved. “Here are my conditions,” she said, counting them off on her fingers. “I want an allowance, a car, freedom to come and go as I please.”

The blonde boy snorted. “Come on, what do you—“

“Agreed,” said Charles. “You won’t be a prisoner.” Of course. Fucking idealist.

“And I want you to bring me my brother,” she said, standing straight-backed, staring at herself in the two-way mirror.

She gritted her teeth as she heard him flickering through her thoughts. Damn, but he was good - she barely felt a trace of him as he flowed through her mind. Was it even him bringing up memories of Christian’s pale, terrified face as they took him away? Or was it her, remembering his captivity at the thought of him being free at last?

“Of course,” Charles said softly, and that would never do. Emma flicked the sensation of his mind away, the offered comfort cruel and alien, and walked out of her own torture chamber without a backward glance. 

The entire facility was frozen solid in mid-motion, their mouths open in conversation, their hands out to exchange files. Emma raised an eyebrow. “It’s a damn fine thing Shaw found me, instead of you.”

Charles, pushed along in his wheelchair (and wasn’t there a story behind all _that),_ looked up at her, a spark of interest, contradiction flickering. Emma rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, sugar, you know me. Follow the power.”

“Your thoughts felt so… sincere,” he said.

“We’re telepaths,” she said, looking straight ahead. “We can fool anyone into believing anything - including ourselves.” She glanced down at him. “You, for example. You managed to fool yourself into believing you’re a good, moral man, and not a terrified child just looking for love and acceptance. Funny thing is, if you’d been a little less perfect, maybe _he_ would have felt like he could trust you.”

The sting ran down her spine and radiated through every nerve of her body, and she couldn’t help but cry out with it, tears coming to her eyes. She laughed shakily as Charles took the wheels from his little pet, pushing himself onwards as the boy stopped, his hands out as if to catch Emma. “Too soon, is it?” she called. She raised an eyebrow at the boy. “You’re a nice one, aren’t you? Go on, then, catch up with your master.”

The boy glared at her, but did as he was told. Emma flicked her hair back and followed.

***

Emma didn’t believe it was really going to happen until she had Christian in her arms, sobbing and shaking and clinging to her like a child. She closed her eyes and pressed him close and drank his presence in greedily, desperately, hungrily. She saw all those bastards had done to him and she hid her tears, because tears were for those who could afford them, those who didn’t have to fight.

She felt an absence as Charles slipped away from them, guilt and shame colouring his thoughts, and something under the ice twisted. Once Christian was safely curled up in the cocoon of sleep, she went to find him.

“Emma!” he said, wiping his face and turning with a bright smile.

“Cut the bullshit, honey, you can’t hide from me.”

“I can, actually,” Charles said, and it wasn’t arrogance if it was true. “How is he?”

“Traumatised,” she said, sitting and crossing her legs neatly, dusting a speck of dirt off the white skirt. “But safe.”

“The institution we found him in has been shut down. All the other young men interned there have been able to retrieve their paperwork.” Charles frowned. “I feel like we should do more, but…”

“You can’t have humans around if you’re going to start a school for mutants,” she said. 

Charles’ lip twitched. “I’m afraid not. Christian being the exception of course.”

“Of course. And your little human friend?”

Charles turned his chair, looking out of the window at the evening falling over the great lawn. “Moira won’t be staying,” he said. “She’ll be returning to the CIA before long, and I can’t have them taking the information from her about us.”

Emma frowned. She agreed, but the deep whirlpool of depression beneath Charles’ thoughts stilled her tongue. She saw Christian in her own arms, saw another sister tear herself away from Charles. Taken by the love of his life.

Charles did not deserve friends. Charles was only good for his mind, not his heart, that he was unlovable had been proven again and again. Emma followed his gaze out of the window and resisted rolling her eyes.

Somewhere underneath, she resisted wondering if being unlovable was a telepath thing.

“I think that’s short-sighted,” she said at last. 

Charles turned to look at her, and it was pitiful, really, how he was so transparently desperate to keep one friend, one equal who cared for him.

 _I know,_ he said softly, but still he showed that desperation as he waited for her to give him just one lifeline.

“Humans on our side are hard to find,” Emma continued, as if none of the subtext existed. “Taking her memories without her consent would be a betrayal she might never forgive. Talk to her, at the very least.”

Charles smiled and looked down at his hands, swallowing hard. “You cry way too easy, sugar.”

“I know,” he said, sniffing. “My mother always said the same.”

“Go talk to Moira, then,” she said, standing up and brushing out the creases.

“Emma… thank you,” he said.

She held his gaze for a moment. He smiled slightly. The appearance of their relationship must be maintained. She flicked her hair back. “You can owe me one.”

***

The spike of fury burst through Emma’s temple, turning her instantly into her diamond form. She reached up and pressed her hand to her head. “What the fuck?”

She stood, tossing her book to one side, and marched through the building towards the newly renovated gym. Hank was standing, looking awkward in a way he rarely did unless he was in his lanky human form, and Charles was leaning back on his elbows on the floor, breathing hard and glaring murder at Hank.

“Hank, dear, would you get us a jug of water please?” she said. Charles’ head snapped towards her.

Hank glanced between the two of them, then scuttled away, muttering “excuse me” to Emma as he squeezed past.

Emma sauntered in to stand over Charles’ prone figure. “What do you want?” he snapped.

“It’s not about what I want,” she said. “I’m gonna do us all a favour and take over from the furball.”

“What?”

“You heard,” she sighed, kneeling down. “I swear to God, sugar, you’d best appreciate this, because these clothes were not meant to crease. Now, what have we got here?” She picked up the leaflet Hank had been reading from.

“Emma…”

“No,” she said, not looking up. “You’re going to lose your temper with someone, might as well be with someone who doesn’t give a damn what you think. Poor Hank looked like you’d just kicked his puppy.”

Charles looked away, his face almost crumpling for a moment, before he set his jaw mullishly. “I can’t kick anyone’s puppy, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Poor you,” she said. “Now, we’re going to start from here, using the resistance band, and then I’ll get you doing some seated push-ups. I see you managed fifteen yesterday, but I think with some proper motivation you’ll make it to twenty today.”

“Emma.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t…” He sighed. “I don’t need your help.”

“And I don’t need to spend my whole day in diamond form.” She ran one finger across the hairline cracks on her neck from Erik’s attack. “So I’d appreciate you getting a move on.”

“Look, I can control my temper, just… it’s fine.”

“Trust me, you’ll be losing your temper more than that with me,” she smirked. “Hank’s too easy on you, he actually cares if you hate him. I relish it.”

“I don’t hate you. Or anyone - I don’t hate anyone.”

“Really? You don’t hate Erik?”

“Fuck you.”

She grinned again, her teeth catching the light. “So easy. So tell me, what would you prefer? To see Erik again as a broken man, or as a powerful one?”

He closed his eyes. “How am I ever meant to look powerful like this?”

“Arm, chest and back muscles. Build up what you can, keep the rest healthy.”

He laughed bleakly and shook his head. “Why? What’s the point? If I never see Erik again it will be too soon.”

She shrugged and picked up the resistance band, looping it around one of his feet. “I see. I didn’t realise Erik was the be-all and end-all for you.”

“He’s not,” Charles frowned at her.

“Oh? Could’ve fooled me. Sounds an awful lot like you’re giving up on those dreams of yours. Weren’t you all about making life better for mutantkind? I must have been wrong about how passionate you were.”

“For fuck’s sake, Emma, I’ve just lost my legs! How am I meant to start a school like this? With this useless… half a body?”

“It’s not--”

“No, enough! You don’t have to see it. You don’t hear the thoughts when I go into town, the struggle to get in and out of the chair, the people assuming my mind is as damaged as my body--”

“Yes, I do,” she said, her voice suddenly serious. “I do, Charles. And I hate them. I hate their pathetic, sorry little excuse for a mind, their ignorance, their short-sightedness. I pity them because they have no idea what you are - what any of us are! And I will not have them get into your mind, I won’t have you believing their bullshit, do you understand? You are Charles Xavier. You have the kind of power that comes along once in a generation and you do not get to waste that on grief and loss. Because if you give up, what hope do the rest of us have?”

Charles pushed himself up, his hand cupping her cheek, and kissed her, his lips soft under hers, still in her diamond form. She closed her eyes, surprise sparking through her mind, returning the kiss, holding his delicate skull in her hands, tipping his head back to deepen the kiss.

When she pulled back and opened her eyes to look at him, the sun was casting rainbows through her crystal body onto his pale cheeks. His deep blue eyes looked into hers, and she saw without her telepathy, the fire reigniting in his soul. “Fight back, Charles,” she whispered. “Fight back against it all and we’ll rule the world.”

He smiled and brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I don’t want to rule the world,” he said. “Just keep my people safe.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, we can do that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> It wasn't meant to be shippy... Charles just has his own ideas about things!


End file.
